“Gluck. Gluck. Gluck.”
My first reaction when I hear this sound is to reach for my cat and fling her off our bed so I don’t have to spend an hour in the middle of the night cleaning up her vomit from our sheets. However in this particular case it was about three in the afternoon, I was not in my bedroom but in Anjum’s office waiting for her to finish work and the person about to throw up was a three hundred pound man sitting in the seat right next to me. As I watched him inexplicably turn towards me and lean his head back and then lurch forward with his mouth wide open I just froze like those villains in movies who get pushed on the tracks and stare helplessly at the train of doom hurtling towards them, knowing that they have but a fraction of a second to jump off but are either awe struck by the spectacle or cannot believe that this could possibly be happening to them.
Spaghetti and meatballs, I think, with beer still frothing and some curdled white stuff were just some of the details I could spot in the gooey mess that had been splattered all over me. “I am so sorry … I did not want to ruin the carpet.” Son of a bitch, I thought .. son of a fucking bitch!
“Are you okay, Mr. Vernich?” I heard Anjum’s secretary ask. Let me take a moment to tell you something about Debra. Anjum hates her. She is tardy, inefficient, confused, confusing and speaks with a Southern drawl that is so drawn out it could make a snail fall asleep. I, on the other hand, like her. She has big boobs. And here she was … a scene right out of Baywatch, running towards me, a role of Bounty in one hand, a bright orange highlighter in the other, her curly brunette hair shimmering in the florescent light and her ample bosom swaying one way then the other, back and forth, back and forth. It wasn’t until she actually side stepped me and leaned over the fat puking slob next to me that I realized my name wasn’t Mr. Virnich. As I was still recovering from this KLPD, I saw her concerned face contort into one displaying extreme disgust as she looked up at me, “Mr. Sayyad! she exclaimed , “you need to take your clothes off.” Still got my name wrong but hey this was progress. “You too, Debra,” was what I wanted to respond with but the neurons in my frontal lobe started firing frantic warnings advising me against thinking with my penis, and I simply nodded my head. One of the older admins leaned over her desk and asked what the commotion was. Debra, with her hand on Mr Virnich’s forehead replied, “Santa is sick.” Santa ? Really ?
Apparently Virnich here was going to be the Santa for the Christmas Party at Anjum’s hospital that was about to start within the next hour, but now with him running a fever and an upset stomach, straddling kids on his lap was out of the question. “Where are we going to find another Santa?” I heard another voice shout out. The admins were in a state of near panic. But I had bigger problems on my mind. I was soaking in a shit load of rancid vomit. I needed a change of clothes. I needed a shower and not the daily bathroom variety but one of those disinfectant spray types that you get doused with at the CDC when you’ve just taken a whiff of the latest viral gas that is going to exterminate humanity. And then after an hour long soak in a barrel of CK One maybe, just maybe, I might be able to get the smell off.
So I asked Debra if there were some clothes I could borrow. “We have a bunch of hospital gowns,” she offered. Yeah .. no. Not a big fan of the those knee length, bare back gowns with that little string behind that’s almost impossible to reach, let alone tie. I can see how it could work on J Lo, but for my brown skinny hairy buttocks it was a non starter, not without a wheelchair or one of those saline/glucose drip posts as accessories.
As we were considering other options, Virnich leaned over grabbed his duffel bag and thrust it towards me. I opened the zipper and out popped a velvety red coat with white fur lining. No, I went. Hallelujah went the admins, and twenty minutes later there I was, smelling like a revolting mix of Dettol and Christian Dior’s Pure Poison, wrapped in a Santa suit that was stuffed with pillows to fill it out, a white flowing beard stuck to my face and a mustache that tasted like moth balls. And if that wasn’t enough, maneuvering in this suit was impossible. When I was not tripping over the ridiculously large boots I was shoved into, I was trying to hold together the medley of pillows and sheets strapped around my torso, while trying to prevent my Santa pants from dropping down to my ankles. So they got a wheelchair and wheeled me into the main lobby where a large crowd had already gathered. The children clapped and yelped, the parents gasped and I waved out to everyone shouting “Ho, Ho, Ho,” apparently with an Indian accent because everyone suddenly looked confused and a few horrified.
Still despite my earlier apprehensions it was great being Santa. These cute little kids coming up to you, all shy and coy initially and then refusing to leave as they rattled down a list of toys and games they absolutely must have. Posing with them and their parents, sometimes with a thumbs up, sometimes with a peace sign, always with a huge toothy smile. Of course there were a few little brats who dared to question if Santa was real and a few others who insisted on pulling on the beard to check if it was real, but not enough to dampen the holiday cheer. So the next time you are at the mall or at a Christmas party, don’t mock Santa, go sit on his lap, snap a picture with him, give him a hug, maybe a kiss and abandon the cynicism if only for a few minutes … ’tis the season to be jolly, tralalala lala la la … but leave the signing to the professionals please.
A Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year … I need to build me a sleigh and catch me some reindeer, before its too late.
Santa.